12,077 of 97,616 records that can be analysed have been assessed so far (12.4%); 85,538 are waiting for analysis and 1 failed and will be retried. Totals and rankings will change as the remaining records are processed, so they do not yet represent the full mandate. How much has been processed
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Every imported question, contribution and motion, with its classification. Non-qualifying, uncertain and not-yet-analysed records are all included so the analysis can be checked independently.
I did reflect on it, and I read through Members' contributions in Hansard. To be honest, there was not much real substance to an awful lot of what was said. A lot of it was extremely personal against me. I am here to answer questions at Question Time. I go regularly to the Committee, and I believe in scrutiny.…
Minister, I appreciate that you have come here with prepared remarks about the DUP. I am no fan of the DUP, and I well know how venal and self-interested it can be. However, you are a Minister accountable to the Assembly. I did not support that motion. My party was never going to support it; we agree with many of the…
John, that is exactly what it was about. While the DUP has treated Northern Ireland as an environmental sacrifice zone, I am proud to be the only Minister in the history of the Department to treat the needs of our environment with the respect that it deserves. Environmental protection and climate action are not…
With the state of our rivers and the quality of our air, I can barely believe that we are here asking the Minister about a motion that failed weeks ago. Does the Minister agree that that motion was more about attacking a Minister who is committed to delivering across the full remit of his departmental responsibility…
I am happy to follow up on that issue and come back to the Member. One of the challenges is budget cover associated with us delivering what the Department wants to deliver. When it comes to departmental business, on the day of that stunt of a motion, I was at the Court of Appeal to hear the outcome of the A5 case. I…
Minister, you remarked on departmental business, and I know that you have a lot in front of you. Have you had much correspondence from applicants to the rural business scheme? I have been contacted by constituents who have been unsuccessful. Despite being told that they had scored highly enough, they were told that…
I will take no lessons on accountability from the DUP. After all, it was the DUP that delivered Brexit, the renewable heat incentive (RHI) scheme, climate denial, hypocrisy and collapsing the institutions — a catalogue of scandals that are eroding confidence in the institutions. It is clear that populism has a grip on…
The Minister failed to respond to the debate in the House. Irrespective of which political party moved the motion and irrespective of the content of that motion, the Minister is a very important person. The House is here to hold the Minister — the very important person — to account. Will the Minister apologise to the…
I chose not to respond because it was clear that the DUP had already made up its mind, regardless of what I had to say. Time and again, your party has proven itself to be insincere, uninterested in facts and evidence, opportunistic and self-serving. My time as Minister was better spent dealing with important…
Thank you. I concur with your thought that we should not use the Equality Act as the baseline. When we conducted our inquiry into gaps in equality legislation, there was feedback that the Act in Great Britain is not perfect and could be modernised and added to. I appreciate your intervention there. The Bill sponsor…
I thank the Member for making that point. I appreciate the concern. It was a deliberate drafting choice to depart from the Equality Act in order to make our legislation stronger here so that financial services do not necessarily have a blanket exception, not least because the protections that a lot of older people ask…
Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. That is certainly worth noting as we scrutinise the Bill. There is a question about what constitutes "goods" and "services". They are probably defined in legislation somewhere, but we probably need to look at the practical application of that terminology. I cannot help but…
I have not considered that example, but I suppose that it fits into the argument about indirect discrimination in the use of digital services. A policy of auto-renewal is arguably such an example, in that a group might disproportionately affected by that. That could constitute age discrimination under the Bill. In…
On that point about car insurance, one case that I dealt with involved the automatic renewal of payments. The person had not realised that the automatic renewal had taken place, and payment was taken. Where people are not just on top of their finances or their accounts, there are practices that providers use, and they…
I will pick up on the point about car insurance. As you know, a lot of providers and underwriters do not provide a service in Northern Ireland. Is there a danger that an unintended consequence of the new financial requirements could be fewer providers in Northern Ireland?
I thank the Member for that intervention. That is a perfect example of potential indirect age discrimination, and it is operating within a scheme that is currently active in Northern Ireland. The Department might argue that it provides a reasonable alternative through the telephone line, but, from my experience in my…
I thank the Member for raising the issue of older people and the use of the internet through a laptop, computer or, particularly, mobile phone. I recently had a constituent in my office who does not use any of that equipment. The constituent has a basic mobile phone to keep in contact with family members but was…
I thank the Member for giving way. She mentioned clinical decisions in health and social care. If a 16-year-old were to say that they did not want to be placed on an adult ward, would the legislation place a duty on the trust to open a new ward for that one patient?